Confused...

[encorp]

What is the big white slot between the PCIe slots on this mobo?


http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=ASUS

I read the slot description in the details and it's not making any sense to me lol

[sswilson]

It's a PCI-X slot. Only found on server motherboards AFAIK.

[encorp]

I thought it was that, but on the MOBO description it said "2 x PCI-X" and I only saw one lol.

Weird, what devices use it do you know?

[Eagle Eye]

PCI-X was developed jointly by IBM, HP, and Compaq and submitted for approval in 1998. It was designed for servers to:

• increase performance of high bandwidth devices such as Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel and Ultra3 SCSI cards
• allow processors to be interconnected in clusters
• attempt to codify individual extensions to the standard PCI bus

PCI-X was needed as some devices, most notably Gigabit Ethernet cards, Fibre Channel and Ultra320 SCSI controllers, and cluster interconnects could, by themselves, saturate the full bandwidth (only 133 MB/s) of the PCI bus. The first solution was to run the 33-MHz PCI bus at double the speed, 66 MHz, effectively doubling the throughput to 266 MB/s. However, machines with multiple high-bandwidth devices still needed more headroom, so additional pins were added to the slot, going from 120 to 184, to form a 64-bit variety. This initially only ran at 33 MHz, basically giving the same maximum throughput of 266 MB/s. Though combined 64-bit, 66-MHz ports had also been implemented, these extensions had been only loosely supported as optional parts of the PCI 2.x standards. Device compatibility beyond the basic 133 MB/s continued to be difficult.
Developers eventually used the combined 64-bit and 66-MHz extension as a foundation, and anticipating future demand, established 66-MHz and 133-MHz variants to raise the maximum bandwidths to 527 MB/s and 1064 MB/s, respectively. The joint result was submitted as PCI-X to the PCI Special Interest Group (Special Interest Group of the Association for Computing Machinery). Subsequent approval made it an open standard adoptable by all computer developers. The PCI SIG controls technical support, training and compliance testing for PCI-X. IBM, Intel, Microelectronics and Mylex were to develop supporting chipsets. 3Com and Adaptec were to develop compatible peripherals. To accelerate PCI-X adoption by the industry, Compaq offered PCI-X development tools at their web site. All major chip makers generally now have or have had some variant of PCI-X in their product lines.

I hope this helps you

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by encorp

I thought it was that, but on the MOBO description it said "2 x PCI-X" and I only saw one lol.

Weird, what devices use it do you know?

Yeah, somebody mixed up PCIe X16 and PCI-X.

[Cptn Vortex]

That P5E WS Pro board is an AWESOME board. I HIGHLY suggest it.

[encorp]

Awesome thanks everyone.

Oh, and I won't be buying it, I was just doing the usual rounds on NCIX when I saw it haha